Following on from my first prediction of the 2024 roster I am going to be taking a deeper dive into position room by position room.
You can read my initial 53-man roster prediction here where I made my first guess at what the lineup might look like come September 2024, as the season goes along I will be taking a deeper dive into each position room.
We will start by looking at how Andrew Berry’s position room has been built to start the season each year:
The Cleveland Browns are likely to head into the 2024 season with six wide receivers on the final 53 man roster and two on the practice squad.
The only time they have deviated from this was the 2022 practice squad which had three wide receivers on it initially.
If you would like a detailed breakdown and the formula of what they are likely to spend on the running back room and other position rooms, here is my OBR VIP article.
By my calculations, they are likely to spend approximately $35,297,346 of cash on the 2024 wide receiver room.
Cooper is by far the most talented wide receiver on the team, outside of him you have three players with promise and a veteran in Cooper. No one on the current roster is going to push him off it during the rest of the season so his only threat outside of injury is that they find other targets on the market they like more such as Mike Evans. I believe this route is unlikely as Cooper is playing well enough you wouldn’t replace him for 2024.
The real question is what you do in the long term with Cooper as it is the final year of his contract. He will be 31 going into the 2025 season so it can be risky to extend him early if he will want multiple guaranteed years adding as well as big money. I believe the best route to go is to allow him to see out the 2024 season and then late in that year or even after the season has completed go to him and see what he wants. This gives more time for these young players to continue developing to see if they have something there.
When they traded for Moore there was lots of hope that it might deliver instant returns, this hasn’t happened. He has shown a few flashes but he has also been wasted on several snaps as a gadget player. The trade is still great as I would rather have Moore & Tillman compared to Jayden Reed.
I don’t see any reason you would get around the table with Moore and start discussing an extension, he hasn’t shown enough to deserve one and also he knows he can do more so won’t settle on a cheap number. He will be here for the 2024 season and that is a year he will have everything to prove for, either to get a long-term deal in Cleveland or set himself up for free agency.
In terms of a depth chart next season I don’t think you can go into the year with him as your number two and then have youth behind him. Currently, they are playing 2.72 wide receivers per snap so you need to have three reliable weapons in the rotation.
We have seen mixed returns for Goodwin from week to week, after the bye he had 20% and 24% of snaps in the two games after that so it looked like there could be on the increase but this fell to 12% against the Seahawks.
His skillset is more suited to getting deep which is limited with the quarterback situation as we are struggling to execute a shovel pass let alone a deep shot down the field.
They might look to bring him back for training camp next year but I think it would be with little to no guarantees as he won’t be guaranteed a roster spot.
It will be interesting to see where the DPJ snaps go over the rest of the season as this will be telling of what his future holds. He isn’t currently guaranteed a roster spot for the 2024 season as they will keep the best players and there isn’t enough in his 28 receptions to know he is worthy of that roster spot. They have trusted him with some important third down targets so there is a level of confidence they have in him.
His ceiling very much seems to be the fourth receiver on a team’s depth chart but he will be battling to prove he can get up to being a third which offers much more opportunity in terms of snaps.
I expect him to make the team but I’m not relying on him very much, I would always rather they gamble on better athletes than someone like Bell, especially with a late third-round pick. While Schwartz proves elite athletes don’t guarantee you anything I would rather risk it for an elite weapon than a nice receiver.
He was drafted as the heir to DPJ, now he has half a season to prove he can be ready for the 2024 season. I don’t think they will rely on him to step into those shoes straight away but his play will dictate how hard they hit free agency/trade market to add talent this offseason.
It was a shock to see him as a healthy scratch last week, I had floated it as an idea for the start of the season but considering they had kept six active for the first several weeks him then being inactive was something I didn’t think we would see.
He is highly likely to be on the 2024 roster as you expect a third round pick to at least get three years as the team try and work out what the player is, then after this they can either extend them or prepare in the draft to replace them the following year.
They seem to have a desperate need for a gadget player, personally, I would prefer Stefanski to reduce its usage in his playbook and focus on getting the better players the ball more. If they need a gadget player then they can look to a late draft pick or UDFA, a player like Grant who has had several injuries is a risk they should avoid.
They don’t need anyone for returning kickoffs as you can fair catch them within the 25 and move to the 25 without risk of injury or penalty. While punt returns might look great, they rarely produce much they should be able to find someone on the 53 who can benefit either offense or defense as well as do this job.
Since he was injured away from the facility he is on the Non Football Injury list rather than Injured Reserve. He is expected to be out for the entire 2023 season and then able to return for training camp next year. His ceiling is going to be the practice squad most likely as he hasn’t done enough to make this talented roster.
FREE AGENCY
With DPJ departing I expect them to go after a free-agent wide receiver this year or someone on the trade market. They really need to find a number two, if they have decent experience then this will benefit them. Take Adam Thielen as an example who signed for $25m/3 last year, someone who can give you nice production as the team’s second wide receiver in a rotation with Cooper and Moore. They likely have a budget in mind between $6-12m for the position, it might be a one-year prove-it deal for someone who had a poor 2023 but wants to go somewhere and prove they still have it.
Here is a list of free agents according to Over The Cap sorted by the snaps they have played this season so far. I have just included unrestricted free agents and not exclusive rights or restricted free agents. That is because these players can control where they sign unless franchise-tagged. Once the season ends I will be back with a full deep dive of every free agent to consider once we know who has re-signed and what the Browns needs are for 2024.
Michael Pittman
Marquise Brown
K.J. Osborn
Gabriel Davis
Tyler Boyd
Donovan Peoples-Jones
Calvin Ridley
Michael Thomas
Josh Reynolds
Kendrick Bourne
Darnell Mooney
D.J. Chark
Nick Westbrook-Ikhine
Mike Evans
Van Jefferson
Tee Higgins
Curtis Samuel
Mack Hollins
Nelson Agholor
Olamide Zaccheaus
Chris Moore
Braxton Berrios
Odell Beckham
Randall Cobb
Trent Sherfield
Ray-Ray McCloud
Lil’Jordan Humphrey
Cedrick Wilson
Chase Claypool
Parris Campbell
Noah Brown
KhaDarel Hodge
Brandon Powell
Scott Miller
Devin Duvernay
Keith Kirkwood
Quez Watkins
Laviska Shenault
Robbie Chosen
Marquise Goodwin
Jalen Reagor
River Cracraft
DeAndre Carter
Equanimeous St. Brown
Mecole Hardman
Byron Pringle
Sterling Shepard
Miles Boykin
Trent Taylor
Isaiah McKenzie
Jamison Crowder
Julio Jones
Richie James
Demarcus Robinson
N’Keal Harry
Jalen Guyton
Jakeem Grant
Matt Slater
Jamal Agnew
Since a team usually has six wide receivers on the roster it is going to be fairly common for a team to add one via the draft each year, it is just a case of where this happens. They could still be looking at them with their day two picks because with Cooper and Moore entering their final years you need to find long-term answers high on the depth chart.
If they make a bigger move in free agency that brings someone in for two years at around $10m a year then they could decide to look for a player around the fifth round instead, maybe the more gadget-like player that Stefanksi seems to be craving.
If you are an OBR VIP Subscriber then you will already have seen the 2024 Age Guardrails draft boards which are updated monthly, here is the latest they have been going since May. While some people might criticise this approach they have been very beneficial because the majority of these older prospects while exciting draft fans have been poor since entering the league. You can read the study into their efficiency here: 2020, 2021 & 2022.
If I had to predict what the Cleveland Browns 2024 wide receiver room will look like, here is my best guess currently:
I am not going to start exploring possible trade names as it is far too early to know who is on the market. But if we look to free agents here are some people that could be in their sights, I am not spending much time on this list, I will save this for my series which starts end of the regular season where I look at every single free agent.
Forget the likes of Pittman and Higgins, they will be extended or tagged and then traded to other teams as they are too good for free agency.
If they decided to move on from Chubb and spent some more money on wide receiver rather than running back then Mike Evans could be in play which would be a fun one-two punch.
